To improve the health and education of the children.
During the 1960’s/70’s war in south-east Asia, areas of Laos were the most heavily bombed places on earth - approximately 250 thousand tons of bombs were dropped on Laos during the war. Many of these bombs and other devices did not explode on impact and lie scattered around the countryside.
Approximately 5000 people a year are killed by unexploded ordinance (UXOs) as starvation causes desperate parents to clear land or forage in areas where they know there are bombs because they are trying to find food.
Children often find the unexploded bombs and play with them as toys or collect them for their metal... with disastrous consequences.
Every year there are hundreds of Lao children and adults injured and killed by these unexploded cluster bombs.
When a child is orphaned or cannot be cared-for by their immediate family, the child’s extended family or village tries to look after them. But as subsistence farmers, where every day is a fine line between life and death, the burden of feeding an extra child where there are no extra adults to help with planting rice or hunting becomes too much. Many children end up being cared for in a Government Orphanage School.
